What: Taboola will acquire native video advertising company ConvertMedia, a native video provider with a US $50 million annual revenue run rate. Convert Media is headquartered in New York, with R&D in Tel Aviv and Bangalore, and sales offices in Spain and London. The company offers Spanish-language videos for the U.S. Hispanic market, Latin America and Spain.Why it matters: With the growth of online video, video recommendation (particularly the less intrusive out stream video), is an important piece of the puzzle for global content discovery platforms like Taboola. With the acquisition, Taboola is trying to get critical mass to rival Google (Youtube) and Facebook, who dominate the video ad market.

Content discovery platform Taboola announced the acquisition of ConvertMedia, a native video advertising company specializing in out stream video.

Following the acquisition, ConvertMedia’s video technology will fully integrate with Taboola’s data and personalization engine, currently reaching over a billion people a month, to help publishers deliver relevant and viewable experiences to the right user at the right time.

Get ready for the 2017 Online Video Marketing Guide to be published on October 25, 2016with the latest stats/projections and intelligence on the Ad-Driven Online Video market (OTT) throughout the Americas. To align your brand with this important annual reference and thought leadership report, please contact Portada's Sales and Marketing Director Kelley Eberhardt at kelley@portada-online.com.

With the acquisition of ConvertMedia, Taboola’s native offering will be uniquely positioned to drive better user experience as well as holistic monetization for publishers seeking to add high-quality video supply. Utilizing Taboola’s personalization technology, which currently reaches more than 1 billion unique visitors monthly, Taboola will be able to deliver video content at the moment when consumers are most apt to viewing.

By incorporating outstream video, Taboola now provides a full funnel solution to publishers and advertisers at scale.

Spanish-speaking World

"We plan to continue to work with and expand our relationships with Latam and U.S. Hispanic publishers at Taboola," Yoav Naveh, co-founder and CEO, ConvertMedia, tells Portada. "We work with numerous Spanish-language sites including El Tiempo, Meteored, and Terra.com," Naveh adds.

The purchase of ConvertMedia happens at a time when TV budgets are rapidly moving to digital, but premium video supply is still scarce, with advertisers seeking to work with technology partners that can offer premium inventory and scalable platforms. Taboola will provide a full native ad funnel for its partners, combining in-article recommendations and native video. TV budgets are particularly high in the U.S. Hispanic market and Latin America and Naveh believes that "this is an excellent opportunity to migrate TV budgets to both desktop as well as mobile video for the open web, beyond the walled gardens of Facebook and Snapchat."
Taboola Native, already being used by NBCNews, The Independent, Reader’s Digest and many others, is a white label version of Taboola’s predictive technology. It enables sales teams to index and recommend branded content items, matching each user with the most relevant and impactful piece of content at the right time, throughout the acquisition funnel. With the addition of ConvertMedia, Taboola’s Native platform will also include the most extensive portfolio of video outstream formats available in the market for publishers. The new video integration will include full customization options for publishers to control delivery and related price points to balance between the user experience and revenue.

“The open web is divided into two -- walled gardens and everything else -- and while social companies have seen huge growth in video viewership, it’s time to bring that success to the open web, and to premium publishers all around the world,” said Adam Singolda, Taboola Founder and CEO. “I believe that the future of publishers’ cross-screen monetization is two-fold: first, content recommendations using image, title and URL, and second, video. We are excited to offer publishers the full funnel, leveraging data and personalization to create experiences that are enjoyable for users and drive revenue growth for publishers.”

PORTADA RESEARCH: Hispanic Online Video Ad Market to Soar to US $450 million. In a new report Portada estimates that the Hispanic Online Video Ad market volume will climb to US $450 millionby 2020. Particularly high growth is to be expected by branded content videos. Among video ad-tipes, in-stream will continue to have the largest share, although out-stream will grow at a higher rate.

“There is a natural synergy between the vision, technology and culture at Taboola and ConvertMedia. With the growth in ad blocking and banner blindness, advertisers and publishers need to reach consumers with relevant and viewable experiences at scale,” said Yoav Naveh, co-founder and CEO, ConvertMedia. “The natural integration with Taboola allows us to better help publishers navigate the balance between user experience and quality controls, while exceeding revenue goals. We’re excited to give publishers unprecedented scale to reach consumers with new information and experiences, and help build out the content discovery category.”

“In many ways, I feel like we’re closing the circle today. I started Taboola nine years ago to help users discover video they may like and never knew existed,” added Singolda. “It’s an honor to go back to our roots in video and to partner with the entire ConvertMedia team. Yoav Naveh has built an outstanding culture and business. Together, we project a billion video streams a day to quickly become one of the largest online broadcasters alongside Facebook, Snapchat and YouTube.”

Each fall, the USHCC hosts the country’s largest gathering of Hispanic business leaders: The USHCC National Convention. The Convention is held every year in a city that embodies the American entrepreneurial spirit and supports a thriving small business community.

With more than 2 billion active users worldwide, and 80 million monthly active users in Mexico alone, the social media giant is boosting revenue at a faster pace than expected. An important part of Facebook's efforts and investments are going into the creation of a major video advertising platform.